Fewer lines.
Louder colors.

Dawn Popo is an illustrator and art director working out of a studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She draws flat, high-contrast figures built from as few marks as a picture can survive, and she has been accused, more than once, of making things look easier than they were.

Over nine years she has made covers, posters and campaigns for magazines, book publishers, record labels, podcasts, a repertory theatre and a Brooklyn gallery. The work tends to arrive when an editor has a difficult idea and no photograph that could possibly carry it: burnout, disagreement, attention, grief. Flat color turns out to be very good at those.

Every piece starts as a single continuous line, drawn badly and repeatedly, until the shape holds without any detail propping it up. Color comes last and is chosen from a deliberately short list, because a palette with too many options is a decision she would rather not keep making.